It’s hard to picture, right? When you’ve grown up tracing the careers of these action sports “superstars”, it is almost impossible to imagine a time when they weren’t dominating the best waves, dirt tracks, pipes and bowls in the world.

Like a warped version of It’s A Wonderful Life, sometimes it is strange to consider a surf, skate, snowboard or moto scene where the pillars of the sport didn’t exist.

Who would have been the first snowboarder to lay down a back-to-back double cork in the superpipe? Would any surfer have managed to dominate the WCT for over 20 years?

But the legends do exist – and action sports are all the better for it. Even at nine-year-old, it seems these guys were already stars in the making.

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